Driving the Clue d’Aiglun, a balcony road in France
Clue d’Aiglun is a very scenic canyon located in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in France. It’s one of the famous French balcony roads.
How long is Clue d’Aiglun?
Tucked away on the southeastern part of the country, to the north of Cannes, the road through the gorges carved by the Esteron river is totally paved. It’s called D10. It’s a road cut into the rock following a narrow ledge. The most challenging part of the drive is 16.7 km (10.37 miles) long, running east-west from Roquestéron to Le Mas.
Is the road through Clue d’Aiglun worth it?
This part of the D10 road is a stage in some famous car rallyes as Rally d’Antibes or Grasse Alpin. The road through the gorges (2km. long, 200 to 400 m. high) is continually featured in magazine and television programs internationally linked to driving.
How long does it take to drive through Clue d’Aiglun?
Plan about 30 minutes to complete the drive without any stop. It’s a great road through beautiful countryside with hardly any traffic. There are many tunnels and galleries along the way. The road runs deep into the pine-covered mountainsides around where water flowing down from the Alpes-Maritimes has sculpted countless grottoes and rock passages in the white limestone. Millions of years and the slow work of erosion created the gorges. The single track road has been blasted out of the mountainside and run underneath overhanging cliffs through blind bends prior to entering a rock tunnel that exits directly onto the approach to the Pont d'Aiglun some 3/400 feet above the spellbindingly beautiful mountain 'snow melt' river Esteron. The road, where the Estéron river flowing from the Alpes-Maritimes has carved out canyons and rock passages in the white limestone, follows a series of gorges in the hills.